A new campaign by the Minority Business Development Institute (MBDI) will be reaching out to minority owned businesses that are having problems qualifying for a surety bond. The organization has traditionally been a source of education and support for businesses that are socially and economically challenged to gain a stronger hand in the business sector.
This new campaign will be aimed at helping newly emerging construction companies who may not have the financial background to qualify for a surety bond. They will be partnering with the Surety & Fidelity Association (SFAA) to implement a program of advisement for those companies that fit the profile and need help securing bonding. You can find out more details here including the types of programs to be initiated and when.

–Enactments. Arizona SB 1184 and Oregon SB 674 are SFAA’s legislation to eliminate the requirement in the state insurance codes that require SFAA, as a licensed rate service organization in the surety bond industry, to submit an examination report that is less than five years old in order to renew our license to file forms, rules, and loss costs on behalf of their members. SFAA retained counsel in these states to pursue the bills for them and obtained enactments in both states.
SFAA may be unique among the industry advisory organizations regarding the impact of the prior Oregon law. The commercial surety bond lines that SFAA represents have sophisticated consumers. States review and/or approve our loss cost and form filings as they are made. For SFAA, renewal of licenses in states like Oregon can be a real problem if there lacks a current exam report, which must be less than five years old. To their credit, state insurance regulators are reluctant to use their limited resources to examine an advisory organization of two small lines. Yet, Oregon and the states with periodic exam requirements cannot waive the exam requirements in their law, which means that SFAA must have a current exam report to renew their license. Therefore, every five years, SFAA is in the position of actively seeking out an exam so that they can maintain all of the state licenses.